1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a collection, storage and disposal system for refuse, trash or any other applicable material and is more particularly concerned with an apparatus and process for accumulating refuse.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, the collection of refuse in high population areas has been an expensive problem. For example, it is common practice, at the present time, to dispose trash containers at strategic locations around an apartment complex and employ a front end loader, known as a "DUMPSTER", to pick up each container, invert it over the hopper of the loader and then return it to its original location. The loaders are especially built and are quite expensive. The containers are heavy and immobile and must be located where the loader will have access to the container.
Mobile containers arranged in tandem for transporting various goods have been devised and, more than one year ago, an apartment complex in Atlanta installed and began using wheeled receptacles designed to be towed in tandem to a site. In operation, however, only a single receptacle is towed at a time and its contents released to a refuse accumulation pit. Also, the receptacle had a single drop door supported in its closed position by a spring loaded cross bar which was automatically tripped by a camming bar. The pit was provided with a compactor which fed to a container.
A search of the prior art revealed the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,213,327; 3,790,008; 3,872,796; 3,994,238; 4,051,960.
All of the above patents disclose wheeled containers towed in tandem with bottom discharge doors tripped by mechanisms to successively release their contents into a pit.
The prior art devices are not well suited to serve the refuse disposal needs of an apartment complexes and are quite complicated and expensive.
The device of the present invention will handle the same volume of refuse as the front end loader system with only about one-fifth the fuel consumption, which the front end load system employs. In other words, when the prior art front end loader picks up a container, the container must be lifted and inverted; then the compactor in the front end loader must be actuated. This requires substantial amount of fuel as compared to my system in which the receptacles are towed to a dump zone and the refuse dropped into a compactor which compacts the released refuse into the large container, which is then loaded onto the chassis of a truck and transported to a disposal site.
In handling the same volume, the front end loader system would require about seventy-five hydraulic cycles whereas the present system requires only two hydraulic cycles. The comparative maintenance of the two systems is also of comparable ratio, i.e. about 75:2.